Fun facts about Australia

1. Perth is Australia's windiest city
2. Australia is as wide as the distance between London to Moscow
3. The biggest property in Australia is bigger than Belgium.
4. More than 85% of Australians live within 50km of the coast.
5. In 1880, Melbourne was the richest city in the world.
6. Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest woman, earns $1 million every half hour, or $598 every second.
7. In 1892, a group of Australians unhappy with the government tried to start an offshoot colony in Paraguay to be called New Australia.
8. The first photos from the 1969 moon landing were beamed to the rest of the world from Australia
9. Australia was the second country in the world to allow women to vote (New Zealand was first).
10. Each week, 70 tourists overstay their visas.
11. In 1856, stonemasons took action to ensure a standard of 8-hour working days, which then became recognised worldwide
12. Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke set a world record for sculling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.
13. The world's oldest fossil, which is about 3.4 billion years old, was found in Australia.
14. Australia is very sparsely populated: Australia has only 2.66 persons per square kilometre.
15. Australia's first police force was made up of the most well-behaved convicts.
16. Australia has the highest electricity prices in the world.
17. At one stage, there were over one million feral camels in outback Australia
18. Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia (mostly for meat production).
19. Qantas once powered an interstate flight with cooking oil.
20. Per capita, Australians spend more money on gambling than any other nation.
21. Australia is home to the longest fence in the world. It is 5,614 km long, Built to keep dingoes away from fertile land.
22. Australia was one of the founding members of the United Nations
23. Melbourne is considered the sporting capital of the world.
24. Before the arrival of humans, Australia was home to megafauna: three metre tall kangaroos, seven metre long goannas,
25. Kangaroos and emus cannot walk backward, one of the reasons that they're on the Australian coat of arms.
26. Australia is one of the only countries where we eat the animals on our coat of arms.
27. If you visited one new beach in Australia every day, it would take over 27 years to see them all.
28. Melbourne has the worlds largest Greek population outside of Athens.
29. The Great Barrier Reef is the planet's largest living structure.
30. The male platypus has strong enough venom to kill a small dog.
31. when the platypus was first sent to England, it was believed the Australians had played a joke by sewing the bill of a duck onto a rat.
32. Before 1902, it was illegal to swim at the beach during the day.
33. Australia has 3.3x more sheep than people.
34. Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim at Cheviot Beach, and was never seen again.
35. Australia's national anthem was God Save The King/Queen until 1984.
36. Wombat poop is cube shaped! This helps it mark its territory.
37. European settlers in Australia drank more alcohol per capita than any other society in history.
38. The Australian Alps receive more snowfall than Switzerland.
39. A kangaroo is only one centimetre long when it is born.
40. The Box jellyfish has killed more people in Australia than stonefish, sharks and crocodiles combined.
41. Australia is ranked second on the Human Development Index (based on life expectancy, income and education).
42. Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world.
43. Australia is the only continent in the world without an active volcano.
44. Aussie Rules footy was originally designed to help cricketers to keep fit in the off-season.
45. The name Kylie came from an Aboriginal hunting stick, similar to the boomerang.
46. 91% of the country is covered by native vegetation.
47. There are 60 designated wine regions in Australia.
48. If all the sails of the Opera House roof were combined, they would create a perfect sphere.
49. No native Australian animals have hooves.
50. The wine cask (goon sack) is an Australian invention
51. The selfie is an Australian made term
52. Each year, Brisbane hosts the world championships of cockroach racing
53. Eucalyptus oil is highly flammable, meaning gum trees may explode if ignited, or in bushfires
54. An Australian man once tried to sell New Zealand on eBay.
55. The male lyrebird, which is native to Australia, can mimic the calls of over 20 other birds.
56. There have been no deaths in Australia from a spider bite since 1979.
57. Captain James Cook first landed on Australia's east coast in 1770
58. The first European to visit Australia was Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon, in 1606.
59. Chinese explorers travelled to Australia long before Europeans arrived. As early as the 1400s
60. In NSW, there is a coal fire beneath the ground which has been burning for 5,500 years.
61. The name Australia comes from the Latin word australis, meaning southern.
62. It is estimated the humans have lived in Australia for around 45000 years.
63. The indigenous people of Australia are "First Nations" and "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people"
64. The highest mountain on mainland Australia is Mt Kosciuszko, standing 2228m (7310ft) above sea level.
65. Although they usually keep to themselves, there are a range of dangerous snakes in Australia, such as the Brown Snake, Tiger Snake and Taipan.
66. Australia hosted the 1956 (Melbourne) and 2000 (Sydney) Summer Olympics.